Chapter Nineteen – Veridien Boys
Morning lessons went fast, and Lawrence still didn't have a proper strategy for sneaking out of the academy prepared. He could ask Ali the truant for advice, but the warnings he'd received so far, veiled or not so veiled, regarding how the academy would treat a student who didn't comply with its rules, had convinced him that he should play it safe whenever possible so he could break the more important rules otherwise.
He held his fake letter, the one he was supposed to send to his mother, in one hand, making sure to appear to any onlooker as someone preoccupied and a tad embarrassed.
He noticed the housemaster walking quickly and with purpose down the corridor and hurried after him.
"Herr Becker," he addressed the man with the proper deference, "would it be possible for me to go down to the village? I have a letter to send," he explained, holding the object in such a way that the housemaster would glean the recipient's name – the one Veridien knew to belong to his dear mother.
Herr Becker inspected him with his pale eyes. The chances were that he hadn't forgotten the personal affront over the heater. Before leaving his room that morning, Bastien had told him about the interview he'd had to give on the matter. In the end, although Bastien hadn't insisted on giving Lawrence details, the housemaster had had to admit defeat, but at the expense of whatever trust Herr Becker had in the new student.
"And engage in pursuits that are far from academic, I presume," Herr Becker replied, delivering each word through his teeth. "But a young man like you, I presume, cannot help himself." He turned on his heel, leaving Lawrence dumbfounded but only for a moment. Herr Becker gestured with two fingers for him to follow. "You are in luck as I need to take care of important faculty business myself. As for your return, I am sure you can arrange something. In the future, you needn't ask for allowance to leave the premises during your free time. Veridien is not a prison. We do not forbid students to mingle with the village folk, but we do not condone it, either. You will proceed as you consider best."
He was getting to ride with the man himself down to the village. Lawrence didn't know whether he should call himself fortunate. Nonetheless, he thanked the housemaster profusely, feeling the weight of evidence he was sending to his uncle weighing in his other pocket despite being nothing but a few pages of sketches and information written in shorthand.
The weight of it had more to do with what he wasn't disclosing in his correspondence than with experiencing any kind of remorse about lying to Herr Becker about the purpose of his visit to the village. His uncle wouldn't know, for now, about Lukas's notebook. Or about his getting a partner in the nonconformist Ali.
Or about Bastien.
That reminded him of other practical matters he'd have to tend to during his trip.
***
Since the place by Herr Becker's side was occupied by a large box, the sort in which files would be stored for archiving purposes, Lawrence understood that he was expected to climb into the back of the black Mercedes.
His curiosity about how vehicles came into Veridien – and left the place, in this case – was now satisfied. On the left side, a new construction had been added to the old castle, affecting its inexpugnability. In other times, attackers would have used the breach in the defense to occupy Veridien, but today, the addition served as a much-needed ramp for grocery deliveries and other such things. With ample room on the inside, another large courtyard that must have emerged after demolishing a few walls, there was even a garage where boxy black vehicles, most of them the same make as the one the housemaster was driving, looked ready for use.
Herr Becker put the Mercedes in motion with steady hands. Lawrence looked behind to see the Veridien employee who would be in charge of closing the doors once they left the premises. Whoever the person was, a young male, if Lawrence appreciated correctly, held his head in such a manner that it was obscured by the door he was pulling from the inside. But when he moved to do the same with the other door, he gave Lawrence a glimpse of his face.
The Mercedes was already too far from the closing gates, so Lawrence could very well be mistaken, but the slow moves, the grey uniform, and the pale hair indicated a certain person. Earnest the gardener. Was the young man so used to his prison that his employers didn't mind leaving him in charge of the gates leading to the delivery ramp and the garage?
Lawrence shook his head. It was only his inference from his one conversation with Earnest that the young man was in some way held there, not precisely against his will, but because he didn't know anything else.
"Was that Earnest?" he asked.
Herr Becker didn't even deign him a look in the rearview mirror. "Who?"
"The employee closing the gates," Lawrence insisted.
"The common personnel at Veridien are trained to be as good as invisible. Only when they fail in their tasks, they become a nuisance. A visible nuisance. Don't become a cause for embarrassment by acknowledging them, Mr. Garth."
"Of course," Lawrence replied courteously. He didn't insist on learning whose embarrassment the housemaster was talking about.
Herr Becker proved to be a dull companion for the rest of their trip to the village. He was, however, a careful driver, and Lawrence could respect that. The winding path down could give professional drivers a run for their money, especially when thin ice covered the road.
Snow was falling from a grey compact sky. Although it was still afternoon, the tall fir trees on each side rose dark and silent. Lawrence watched the landscape glide past, his mind split between what he was telling his uncle in his notes and what he wasn't.
***
Waldwilen stretched on a rib of the mountain, most of its buildings lining behind the railway that made a small curl there, its highest point before diving down the slope. Lawrence had arrived for the first time there by train and had considered the trip too quaint for his taste. The train had to slow considerably as it approached Waldwilen, which could make passengers feel as if they would never reach their destination.
Despite its relatively small size, the village closest to Veridien was a lively place, complete with a café and even a disco where young people gathered to listen and dance to music like the kind Ali loved to make. Lawrence wondered briefly where Ali was making his music and whether his family was dead set against his pursuing a career so different from the one they had chosen for him.
Herr Becker abandoned him quickly and continued his journey. Lawrence had assumed, wrongly so, it seemed, that the housemaster's destination was also the village. Wherever Herr Becker needed to be, it was farther than that.
His uncle had warned him that the villagers weren't particularly fond of the academy in their vicinity. Lawrence had taken that information to heart, so he wore his own clothes, not the Veridien uniform. Besides the post office, Lawrence had in mind a couple of visits to the café and the local universal store. If it was gossip he wanted, he'd surely find it around somewhere.
The café was half-full at that hour, which allowed him to find a table quickly, one by the window, where he could sit alone without encroaching on the available space. With sure moves, he took out a notebook and began to rapidly sketch the footprint of the boot left behind by whoever had broken that statue in his hurry to disappear. There had been footprints – shoeprints, bootprints – at the highest point above the ravine after Lukas had been found, but they belonged to so many people who had gone there that it was hard to identify one that would stand out.
Still, Lawrence didn't like to leave things to chance. He had made a rough sketch of the bootprint in his room, but given the circumstances, he hadn't had the time to fill it in.
His uncle loved to joke that Lawrence seemed to be able to sense someone approaching from several feet away. In this case, a waitress in a lovely red-and-white checkered apron was hurrying to bring his order. With a casual gesture, he closed his notebook.
"Danke(1)," he offered, along with a smile.
"You're from there," she said, her accent not the worst Lawrence had ever heard. The way she gestured assured him that she knew he was from Veridien.
"Yes. What gave me away?"
"Always studying," she said, pointing at the table. Her canines were a bit long, which, on another face, would have made their owner look feral. In her case, they made her look pretty in the way of a cute young woman dressing up as a vampire for a costume party.
The notebook and the pen. Lawrence looked down. Somehow, he didn't believe that was what had truly given him away. They didn't get many strangers here.
"Ah," he said, smiling at her. "A day spent without studying is a lost day."
She grinned, showing her teeth more. Lawrence had seen that look plenty of times to know what it meant. He would ultimately have to disappoint her, but for now, a bit of flirting wouldn't kill anyone.
"That's not all Veridien boys do," she said. "Coming to the disco tonight?"
Lawrence gave her a surprised look. "Are you telling me that Veridien boys," he used the same expression as she had, "can actually dance?"
She bit her bottom lip, her smile widening. "Sure they can. They can dance very well. I can teach you if you don't know how."
Hmm. So the students mingled with the village folk, despite Herr Becker's – and the faculty's – warning against it.
"I haven't made many friends there yet. So, who comes to the disco, usually?"
The waitress held her tray pressed against her apron and looked up as if she needed to think hard. "I'm not sure they use their real names. It's like they're spies. But there's the tall handsome one."
Tall, handsome one. Now that didn't exactly narrow it down.
"You know, big, like you," she continued.
That could be Norris.
"And the twins. They are dreamy," the girl said with a sigh. "And they're so cute, only speaking French and all."
Ali and Felix. They seemed to buddy up for a visit to the disco, unlike when they were at Veridien.
"But they haven't come here in a while. Not since--" the words seemed to die on her lips.
"Steffy, komm(2)," the girl's boss shouted over the din of the café.
She rolled her eyes and turned on her heel. But she did look once over her shoulder, bidding Lawrence a quick goodbye with two sneaky fingers.
He didn't need the girl to finish what she had meant to say. It looked like the great divide between the twins had happened after Lukas's death. It was possible that the entire Golden Circle indulged in cheap entertainment in Waldwilen, or had done so.
Since Steffy was busy now serving other clients, Lawrence continued his work on the sketch. It wasn't half-bad, and now that he looked at it, the details slowly filtering away from his mind to remain on paper, he realized that there was a certain pattern on the sole of the boot he hadn't stopped to analyze. He'd been too careful not to let the photographic memory slip away.
His uncle would know better, but Lawrence was willing to bet that wasn't some ordinary boot. At Veridien, they were required to wear shoes to class, but since most students – or all except the new transfer – wore other clothes issued by the academy, it was worth looking into.
Ali had said that the runner was someone dressed in black. It was possible that Ali hadn't managed to catch even a glimpse of that guy, the disaster that he was when it came to running and other physical activities. So, his overly active imagination must have filled in the blanks. Lawrence knew he'd have to be careful about his partner and his uncanny ability to turn things into more than they were.
Bah. He trusted Bastien too much when it came to Ali. If Ali was the only one wanting to discover the truth about Lukas's death, that was definitely not a good look for the Golden Circle. And it reflected badly on the Sun King himself. Devastated by the death of his boyfriend – yes, that was understandable. But lack of any desire to discover who did it?
It looked like Lawrence needed a bit of distance from Veridien for some of Bastien's spell to lift.
He perused the sketch in front of him again. The prominent heel made it look like the print was made of two parts. In hindsight, it had struck Lawrence as odd when he'd noticed it first, too. The blocky pattern of the tread also suggested the same thing that had crossed his mind before: such a rough design would unlikely be issued by Veridien.
Lawrence scribbled a few things for his uncle to investigate based on the footprint he was sending. Jakob would surely dislike that his nephew wasn't disclosing where he'd found the bootprint, but he'd trust him, which was the only thing that mattered right now in their communication.
The utilitarian boot could have been worn by someone from the personnel. Which made the person who'd broken the statue no more than a delivery boy. Lawrence's mind flew to Earnest and the slow way he moved. It was odd to place two opposites together, but it was a technique that revealed truths that otherwise remained in shadow, like the objects you couldn't quite make out in a dimly lit room.
His uncle would have better luck identifying the kind of boot that was and establishing if there was something inherently interesting about it.
Steffy was coming back with the bill. Lawrence thanked her and left a decent tip, not generous enough to give her the wrong idea, but not so measly that he would be considered cheap.
***
The clerk standing behind the worn-out counter and in front of the pigeonholes filled with parcels and envelopes gave Lawrence a quick once-over that could only be interpreted as ambivalent. People working in such places were nosy by definition, but they were trained to hide it well.
He pushed the two thick envelopes toward the man, who picked them up, placed them on the small scale at his right, and quickly calculated the fare on his electronic calculator. Lawrence made a point to pay the precise amount. In his experience, postal workers weren't keen on people who had them rummage through their pockets for exact change.
"Diese Jungen… die haben den Teufel im Blut.(3)"
Lawrence turned at the sound of those words, spoken in a confidential, hoarse whisper. Behind him, on one of the wooden benches, a drunkard slouched, his eyes bloodshot, the unmistakable smell of cheap wine wafting from him.
He could be in his fifties, though alcoholism could add years to someone younger, pushing them toward an early grave. His clothes, surprisingly so, were neat and of good quality. In all Waldwilen, Lawrence hadn't seen a homeless person or a beggar. It was a prosperous village, with a strong sense of community – at least the brochures said so – and it seemed uncanny to have one of them sunken into decay.
"Herr Schneider, bitte(4)," the postal worker said in a tired voice.
The drunkard set his eyes on Lawrence. They seemed alert for the state the man was in. He wagged a finger, but the movement made him sway, so he stopped. As if he were only recalling something, he reached into the pocket of his vest and pulled a watch out.
"Who did you mean, sir?" Lawrence asked. "Earlier?"
"Don't encourage him," the postal worker hissed.
"Von oben(5)," Herr Schneider replied, pointing upward with his index finger.
"Do not mind him. Go home, Herr Schneider," the postal worker said out loud. "Try again on Monday."
At that, the drunkard rose to his feet and staggered toward the door. "Am Montag, ja?"(6)
"Without a doubt," the postal worker replied.
Lawrence looked after the man through the window. He walked with his hands swaying by his sides, finding his balance with each step.
"Will he be all right?" he asked.
"Yes. Would this be all?"
Lawrence stared at the man, only to receive a harsh stare back.
"He was talking about the academy."
The postal worker shrugged his shoulders as if his clothes didn't fit him well enough. "Yes."
"Why?"
"Because he's a foolish old man. Waiting for a letter that will never come." The postal worker huffed in annoyance. "But he's harmless. He just enjoys seeing conspiracies everywhere."
"Conspiracies? In a place as quiet as this?" Lawrence asked.
The postal worker seemed eager to entertain him now. "Precisely." His face lit up. "We might not have the ski slopes of St. Moritz, but you can spend a lovely vacation here. Are you here for long?"
"I'm actually a student at Veridien."
"Ah, I see." The man's countenance soured visibly. "Not a tourist."
"I love places like this," Lawrence said, putting on his most charming smile. "And the least I can do to balance my grueling studies is to spend a few lovely hours here on the weekend."
That appeared to mollify the postal worker somewhat. "Of course, of course. If you don't mind my noticing, you don't appear to be cut of the same cloth as the other boys from up there."
"I'm a transfer student. You have an excellent eye. My family is not rich enough by far to send me here for four years, but they did pull some strings and called in some favors so I can have a semester here appearing later on my résumé." Lawrence doubted he'd end up spending the whole year at Veridien, and he only intended to feed the postal worker just enough information to make him seem relatable. Unlike 'the boys from up there'.
"An excellent idea," the postal worker said. "It will definitely help you."
Lawrence placed his elbows on the counter, leaning in conspiratorially. "If you don't mind my asking, about the student who died--"
The postal worker gave him a sharp look. "Are you with a newspaper?"
"No. It's simple curiosity. Months ago, you couldn't open a paper without seeing him staring back at you." Lawrence looked away, his eyes becoming unfocused. "And now, hearing Herr Schneider talking like that. It just makes one wonder." His eyes were trained on the postal worker's face again.
The man snorted. "They are not criminals up there, if that is your concern, young man. Unlike in the past."
It was the right in Lawrence needed. "Is that so? I'm not familiar with the history of the place."
"Oh, it's nothing but myths and legends. Folktales, you know," the postal worker replied, but he looked like he was warming up to the idea of sharing gossip of the distant past with the passing stranger.
"Truly? I'd love to hear more. As long as I'm not keeping you from your work," Lawrence offered, only half-apologetic.
The man shook his head. "I don't mind. Thing is," his voice dropped to a whisper, "Veridien served as a place of hiding for royal blood in troubled times." He nodded, turning his head slightly, his eyes never leaving Lawrence's.
"Royal blood?"
"Are you familiar with the curse of the Capetians?"
"Of course," Lawrence said. "Wait, am I supposed to believe that the Dauphin(7) hid here?"
"No, not him. But of his blood," the postal worker added, nodding again. "The curse, however, forgives no one."
"The Grand Master's curse(8), I assume," Lawrence said smoothly, inviting his conversational partner to confirm.
"Of course." The postal worker's face lit up. "They still teach proper history today, it seems."
"What does any of this have to do with Veridien? The Capetian dynasty – the direct line, at least, died in 1328."
"Yes, but if we're talking blood," the man continued in the same low voice, "we'd be in the wrong to say that."
Lawrence felt the need to scratch his head. "I don't believe I understand."
"The daughter no one ever spoke about," the postal worker said. His nodding intensified, seeking Lawrence's approval before the man ended up popping a cervical vertebra.
"A bastard? That is hard to believe. Philip the Fair didn't exactly live up to his handsome physical appearance," Lawrence argued. "The Iron King was a better chosen moniker for him and his rule. On top of it all, he was deeply religious."
"Not a bastard. Just concealed," the postal worker said, waving impatiently. "A weakling, kept away from the public eye."
Lawrence shook his head. "Isabella was the only female child to reach adulthood. I don't recall the names of the others, but to my knowledge they died when they were children."
"But did they?" The sly glint in the man's eye was enough to convince Lawrence that he was dealing with one of those people turned historian for the sake of pride. "Maybe one of them lived and went on to have sons and daughters of her own."
"What's your theory, then?"
"No, no, not my theory," the postal worker leaned back and waved his hands, this time defensively. "It is all just rumors, of course," he hastened to add, quickly catching on that he was dealing with someone not so keen on believing just any outlandish conspiracy.
"Myths and legends do not get born out of nothing," Lawrence issued his peace offering. "So a descendant of Philip IV hid at Veridien?" The idea seemed to him so ridiculous that he didn't bother to hide it.
The postal worker no longer seemed so keen on continuing, but as soon as Lawrence made a move to leave, he caught his arm. "She was only a little girl. And they killed her up there," he said quickly, his eyes darting sideways. "Hundreds of years from that wretched curse, and she still couldn't escape it."
"Who killed her?" Lawrence asked. "The Knights Templar were no more."
"Hmm," the man grunted, releasing his arm, as if only then he'd realized the strangeness of his gesture. "You can kill a man, you can kill hundreds and thousands of men, but how do you kill an idea?"
"So it was admirers of the Order?" Lawrence politely inquired.
"Sure, you can call them that."
The door opened, breaking the conspiratorial spell between them. The postal worker straightened up and looked over Lawrence's shoulder at the newcomer, pushing himself up on his toes.
"Thank you," Lawrence said. "It sounds like a fascinating story. I'd like to hear more next time."
The man frowned and paid him no mind. His attention was entirely trained on the old lady who approached the counter with a small parcel in her hand.
TBC
(1) Danke (German) – thank you.
(2) Steffy, komm (German) – Steffy, come.
(3) Diese Jungen… die haben den Teufel im Blut (German) – These boys… they have the devil in their blood.
(4) Herr Schneider, bitte (German) – Herr Schneider, please.
(5) Von oben (German) – from up there.
(6) Am Montag, ja? (German) – on Monday, yes?
(7) The Dauphin (in this context) – Louis XVII (Louis Charles), the second son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette; he officially died at the age of ten in 1795 while imprisoned during the French Revolution. Because the Salic Law barred female children from inheriting the throne, his death signaled the end of the senior Bourbon line of the Capetian dynasty. However, the dynasty technically endured through its cadet branches, with the House of Bourbon returning to the throne during the Restoration (1814–1830) and the House of Orléans ruling until 1848; their descendants continue the lineage to the present day. Speculations that he had been clandestinely saved and smuggled out of the country led to the emergence of dozens of pretenders claiming to be the lost King or his rightful descendants.
(8) The Grand Master's curse – here, Lawrence refers to Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, who was burned at the stake in 1314 by Philip IV (the Iron King). According to legend, Molay cursed the King and his descendants to the thirteenth generation. Philip IV represented the 11th generation of the direct Capetian line, and the premature deaths of his three sons – the 12th generation – without male heirs provided the 'grain of truth' that turned the curse into an enduring historical legend, ultimately leading to the extinction of the direct dynasty in 1328.